Staying true when everybody wants to eat you
by AnnieVarg
Summary: The story starts with the beginning of the end. Tracy Amelia Brockman is alone at home, chasing of flies from her legs when the dead come knocking. With the company of her family and their trusted dog Boozy she tries to live when everybody else is dying. Based on the world in the walking dead, the will eventually met up with Rick and his group.


With mom grocery shopping and dad working extra at the wilderness store I found myself without help when the flies came at me at full force. A window open the entire morning because of the heat apparently lured them in like mom used to lure us in to the kitchen with promises of ice-cream, when she actually planned to bribe us with it, forcing me and my brother to think of the melting chocolate divineness reward with every bite we took of the boiled broccoli.

As a deep-thinking child I often found myself wondering if the trouble was worth it.

Or maybe I was just lazy.

And that trait I had unfortunately not grown out of yet, to my PE teacher's great displeasure.

"FELIX!" I shouted at full force. No answer.

"WHERE IS THE FLY KILLER?" Still no answer.

"DON'T MAKE ME LEAVE THE COUCH!" And even the threat fell flat.

"Well screw me with a wine opener." I mumbled and made an exaggerated sound as I pushed myself out of the sofa. What where little brothers for if not fetching things with their never ending energy.

"And you." I said, pointing at the dog. "Shame on you. Such a disgrace to our family. You never do us anything. Get a job." Bling Ringadingding Barkmaster the Third, or just Sir Boozy as short, started hesitantly waving his tail, looking up at me with eyes that could melt Antarctica if he felt like it.

"I hate you." I whispered viciously. He followed me to the kitchen, where the floor was covered with red paw prints.

My breath caught slightly in my throat. It looked like a kinder version of a murder scene, the sort you might find in a children's book with a dog detective wearing glasses investigating the disappearance of the tennis ball. Everything else in the room was in perfectly good order.

"My dear Sir." I said gently, kneeling at the floor. He came towards me with the tongue hanging, looking rather proud over the crime. I laid him down on his side to check his paws. Not a scratch on any of them. Then where did the blood come from?

"Felix?" I called again. Then I saw the note on the refrigerator. The invitation to his friend's party that I'd stared at every time I'd been looking for a snack.

"Well then Sir." I said, pushing my fingers through his speckled fur.

Problems have two solutions. Sadly only one of them counts, and that's to find the solution. Of course I could push the problem away for however long I wanted, but how was that going to help anyone? And lazy as I was, even I couldn't walk around comfortably knowing that there might be something dead and bleeding in the house.

But I couldn't find anything. Sure, my favorite pair of leather boots turned up being hidden in the depths of my mother's so called "dawn of the dead" closet, as my dad lovingly had named it after his best pants had ended up there, and thereafter never been seen again. But bleeding animals?

"Nope." I said to myself, with piles of outgrown toys in my lap.

"Boozy!" He came like a faithful servant, sniffing the colorful plastic trains and lego pieces before carefully selecting an orange teddy bear, nibbling it in the ear as he dragged it out of the pile. He looked up at me hopefully.

"Oh really?" I said, and wiggely waggely went his tail. I put on my boots and went out.

The air was a blessing compared to the midday heat hell we all had struggled with, the light calming to the eyes instead of trying to split your head in two. With a deep breath of air in my lungs I took just a moment to relax, let my shoulders drop, listen to the crickets. Then I tossed the stupid teddy bear and watched Boozy fly across our lawn. He stopped just before the woods, sliding on the grass from the force of his drastic turn as he raced back towards me with the teddy between his teeth.

"Fuck." I said to no one as I tossed the stupid teddy again. Even as I watched Sir Boozy enjoy himself to the extent of almost breaking his own legs in the hurry to get to the stupid orange teddy bear I couldn't even manage a smile. Not even a half one, because something was pressing against my lungs, making it slightly harder to breath properly.

"Hey!" I called, but god damn it! The dog didn't listen. Too busy to tear the teddies to pieces too hear me anymore. I called again, causing him to briefly pause and look at me like I was stupid for even asking such a thing as his attention before going at it with full determination again, shaking his head like I had seen metalheads headbang when they were on acid and drunk at the same time.

With a curse hovering in my mouth I went to get him myself.

I saw the shape in the trees as a shadow before it was anything else and therefore reacted as if it could have been anything.

"BOOZY!" I called, running up the wooden porch and grabbing dad's shotgun he always had leaned up against the wall. With a click and a second the weapon was propped up against my shoulder, and the dog was around my legs, making sounds somewhere between growling and whining.

"You're such a chicken." I said, not knowing why I was even talking, even less to whom I was referring.

The shadow turned out to be both human and not human. Alive but still dead. And disgusting beyond belief. It snarled and stumbled, it's left leg dragging along a foot that was only detached to the rest of the body by a piece of skin. I saw more teeth on the things face than I should have been able to see. "Hello?" I said, and then again because I couldn't quite hear my own voice. The sound seemed to encourage it.

It had hair the color of newly shopped wood. Long dirty hair but still pretty. Hair I would have admired and wished for under any kind of circumstance other than this.

I couldn't shoot a human being. I just couldn't. So when she came to the stairs of the porch I simply kicked her down to the grass. She started crawling back up, unaffected. I kicked her back down again, lowering the gun because I couldn't keep it steady anymore.

"Miss?" I asked. "Miss? Miss?" Just a snarling as response.

"Miss, please." I said as my boot hit her on the nose.

I can't remember how many times I repeated this. It became dark. The sounds minimized to me, the woman's snarling and Boozy as he continued to whine, pressed against the door to our house behind me. The stairs where quite soon covered with blood. I just kept at it.

Mom came home eventually. I heard the front door slammed shut followed by her shouting my name the way moms shout when they don't cover up how much you mean to them.

"MOM!" I cried, and slam boom bam she was there, taking in the situation with Felix closely behind her. I saw them and felt all my energy run down to the ground and leave me with a mind filled with spacey lights and shimmering spots. With a thud against the wall and a slide down to the floor I sat down next to Felix and Boozy. Mom didn't hesitate. She took the wrong end of the shotgun and banged the handle to the woman's head with a swing, like she was just out golfing.

It was an awful mess. I can't remember if I puked or not.

We all somehow crawled back in to the living room. And so this story starts as it began, with me on the sofa.


End file.
